Looking at dogs

What I wish credible trainers, behaviorists and veterinary behaviorists would make public are photographs and videotape of dog behavior with clear identification and make it available to the average dog owner. I don’t mean training videos, but behavior: images of dogs who are anxious and relaxed; normal and not normal dogs within the same context. What do they sounds like, what to do they look like?

The question of identifying relaxation has come up frequently on our dog aggression group where anxiety and relaxation are critical to treatment. Its difficult to explain what relaxation looks like – especially online – unless you can actually see comparisons. You would think it would be easy, but its not. Again and again, owners are challenged to recognize what relaxation actually looks like. Until we can do identify relations reliably, treatment is going to be an uphill battle.

Many of us become desensitized to peculiar aspects of our dogs behavior and we start to think its just “them”. Well, of course it is just them (who else would it be), but they may also being showing you signs of anxiety that we are not recognizing. Anxiety is tricky because its an internal state and it can manifest through any kind of experience or interaction in a variety of behaviors. When it does, it is usually behavior that is outside of “normal” as compared to other dogs without anxiety.

Those of us who have multiple dogs are lucky because we can at least we are aware of the differences even if we can’t identify why such as the: The aggressive dog who always seems hyper-alert to the slightest thing outside when the others snooze on the couch. The dog who never investigates when he comes into a new room. The dog who can’t sit still after an hours of being in a new room. The dog that lies down with his legs and tail tucked in. This is the stuff you get to see when you go to the veterinary or training conferences but generally is hard to find for average dog owners.  I’d like to see these videos/images online. For free.

We are so used to looking at dogs in a modular fashion. So many dog owners spend hours analyzing why their dog has gone after Fluffy, but not Fido, and why yesterday, but not today, but today he went after a big dog, and he never had issues with big dogs before. Well, that’s just us being human. Sometimes we are trying to justify it, sometimes we are in denial, but mostly we try to make sense of things.  But its hard to make sense of things when we don’t have all the information we need.

One of the most popular pages on the K9aggression site is the page on types of aggression in dogs. You can imagine people pouring over those descriptions and trying to match it up to their dogs. Some people get despondent seeing owner-directed aggression, food aggression and possession aggressive. Lots of debates have centered around whether their dog had protective aggression or territorial aggression. Actually, if our dog is aggressive towards other dogs – we kind of like the idea our dog is protecting us (its all about us – we’re so predictable). But we don’t like the aggression or the problems is causes for us.

But the kind of aggression our dog is classified with does not give us much information except in predicting the circumstances where might happen again (which is actually huge, but usually not what people focus on), and then to some degree how to treat. But aggression is not our dog’s problem. Its a symptom of the problem(s) – a non-specific symptom at that. It does not always occur in isolation to the specific trigger, even if it looks to us that way. Most of us just learning about aggression know very little about it, or about anxiety as an underlying contributor.

If our dog really has the larger problem of anxiety, then learning about anxiety will inform us much more about the aggression. The more we understand anxiety, the more likely we are to recognize it in a variety of situations. The more we understand it, the less inclined we are to expose our dogs to the triggers of anxiety. In turn we will see less aggression without treatment simply because we are managing it much better.

In some circles there is moral judgement around “just” managing your dog’d behavior, when we should be treating our dog. To some degree I subscribe to this, because a dog who can be helped is a happier and potentially safer dog. I say potentially, because people can be lulled into the idea that their dogs are no longer aggressive when the changes in the brain never go away.

However, so many people do not know how to properly treat their dogs, even when they buy into the idea of desensitization and counter conditioning. The reason for this is because doing these techniques right depends on recognizing when your dog is relaxed. In most cases we are only looking for what is not there (i.e. I can proceed to get my dog closer to his trigger because he is not acting aggressive), opposed to the behavior that is actually there: is it a quiet, still, focused body, or loose limbed dog? Dogs give lots of signs, but we don’t always know how to read them.

Some people claim that aggressive pitbulls give no warning to their aggression and this is what makes them dangerous. I would argue that in fact pitbulls give signs as much as any other dogs. But some may not give the same kinds of signals that some other types may. I have seen some dogs play and act submissively – excited, almost manic. They seem like silly crazy puppies, when in reality there is no submission there at all. They are not truly playing – and this may be our inability to differentiate between different mode of interaction – but they are interacting anxiously and trying desperately to get signals from the other person or dog. It looks like play on the outside, to us, at least, and maybe it will never turn. But that silly crazy behavior may be a cue for issues in other areas of the dogs life

Dog owners hyper-focus on the behavior of aggression because that is their problem, when by the time their dog is acting aggressive its too late – the damage is done. Dog owners can be susceptible to those professionals who can promise to stop the behavior now (or soon). Hyper focusing on suppressing the behavior interferes with understanding and treating the underlying causes. Interestingly not too much literature is out there by shocking people for anxious responses. For the most part the standard treatment includes relaxation as an important element.

Unfortunately not enough solid comprehensible information is out there to help owners establish trust and treat their dogs humanely. Desensitization and counterconditioning is understandable is theory, but in practice is a challenge to execute as it is with people. It usually gets reduced to throwing the dog some treats.

But if we can focus on relaxation and getting our dogs there we are on to something, because a relaxed dog is not an aggressive dog. Start in the home, start to teach them what it means to relax, start teaching them what they need to do to relax. And reward them for relaxing so they get it and can do it on cue. In time relaxation can be self reinforcing.

In the mean time I encourage any trainers, behaviorist and vet behaviorists – make the stuff available online (we can help with the online part). Identify what is a relaxed dog, what is not a relaxed dog. Identify a relaxed mouth and a tense mouth. Show us the wrinkled brow, show us the tucked in legs, show us comparisons. Tell us more about stress responses.

Dog owners need it. Dogs need it.